What is the value of Arts in mankind?

In the history of man, extensive use has been made for dissemination of the local cultures, history and religion through their Arts. This goes back from prehistoric times and ancient cultures of the Zoroastrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Europeans, Buddhists, Jains, Hindus, Islamic and Chinese cultures.

Evolution of Sikh Arts!

Until recently the Arts of the Sikhs has been confused as either Hindu and or Islamic Arts. It is only in the last decade that Arts of the Sikhs has emerged as distinct with unique characteristics of its own. Today the arts of the Sikhs have been widely acknowledged and almost ten books have been devoted to its publication. These publications continuously bring to light the unique cultural, historic and religious features of the Sikhs. In the last five centuries, this also brings to a sharp focus on the unique aspects of the religion of the Sikhs. The Sikh Foundation was one of the very few organizations that played a key role in this evolution of Sikh Arts.

EXHIBITIONS

The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms

The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms began as a dream in 1992 when the Sikh Foundation organized its 25th anniversary with an exhibition and a conference, 'Splendors of the Punjab, Sikh Art and Literature', in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and UC Berkeley. This small exhibition of works from local Sikh collectors was clearly the tip of the iceberg. With the thought of an international Sikh arts exhibit, Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany, chairman of the Sikh Foundation, approached the Victorian & Albert Museum in London, one of the largest museums in the world, to make the dream of an international exhibit of Sikh art a reality. He had the support of the Asian Art Museum and of Susan Stronge, a curator with the V&A who was also a presenter at the 1992 conference. Furthermore, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto consented to exhibit the Sikh collection. Within a few years, the communities and collectors in the UK, USA, Pakistan, and India had also risen to the occasion, and helped make a fabulous exhibition possible. Susan Stronge’s dedicated curatorship has brought together breathtaking Sikh arts treasures from around the world. Over 500,000 people have seen this exhibition in London, San Francisco and Toronto.

What’s in it? What does it tell us? Why is it so splendid?

It opened in London at the world-famous V&A Museum on March 22, 1999, Nearly 300 works of art including a sleekly smithed cannon and turban-shaped helmets of damascened steel to rippling silks, kashmir shawls, gem-encrusted jewelry, a golden throne, the earliest portraits of the Gurus, and court paintings of Sikh maharajas and noble warriors. patron was Maharaja Ranjit Singh who ruled a secular kingdom for forty years that ultimately reached to the borders of Afghanistan and Tibet. Here is the heritage of the Sikhs -- the Punjab as a melting pot of arts, philosophies, faiths and races was never more thoroughly expressed than in the Sikh kingdoms where artistic schools of the Mughals, Punjab Hills, Patiala, Kashmir, Persia, Victorian England and continental Europe crafted a dazzling multicultural splendor. Sikhism at its best excluded no one.

The exhibition was brought to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco under the sponsorship of the Sikh Foundation and its third and final destination became the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Dates & Venues

Victoria and Albert Museum, London
March 22-July 22 1999

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
September 22-January 9, 2000

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
May 27, 2000 – August 2000
In Toronto, the response of this exhibition was beyond imagination as the Canadian Sikh community was able to provide some unique Art objects which were neither available to the exhibition in London and San Francisco.

Dr. Narinder S. Kapany, and his wife Satinder
meet HRH Prince Charles at the opening of
The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms in London.

Piety and Splendor

In January, the tour of the ‘Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms’ exhibition to the National Museum of Art in Delhi was postponed at the last moment over cost and loan issues. Professor B. N. Goswamy, Professor Emeritus of Art History, at Chandigarh University, had been appointed to work on the exhibition for Delhi. He now took up the challenge. In six weeks (an exhibition is normally two years work), he put together an alternative, very beautiful and thoughtful exhibition of Sikh art and artifacts available from Indian collections. Since the Golden Throne of Maharajah Ranjit Singh was on its way to Toronto, he had a gold-plated replica made by craftsmen who may well have been the descendents of the first makers. It was visually indistinguishable -- if a little thinner on gold.

The originals on show were marvelous, often touching and sometimes surprising -- a painting of Guru Nanak in a robe with both the Guru Granth Sahib and Qur’an calligraphed upon it, evocations of the Sassi and Punni love tragedy and closely-observed portraits of common people with all their uncommon dignity. In the same miraculous six weeks, a superb coffee table book entitled “Piety & Splendor Sikh Heritage in Art” that matches the Catalog for the Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms in content, design and print quality, was produced. Check out this book in our online shop.

So the failure of one exhibition to fulfill its promise in India made it possible for one of Indian’s finest art scholars to put together another spectacular exhibition of Sikh art. All in the year of the 300th anniversary of the Khalsa. We have to feel pleased.

How is Sikh Arts growing after The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms exhibition?

After the exhibition, Sikh art collectors have grown tremendously in the western world. Apart from acquiring authentic and historic Sikh Art objects, the Sikhs have also become very aware of modern Sikh Art. Many Sikh youth are now working towards making a fulltime career in Sikh Art. 

Sikh Art Now (Forthcoming Contemporary Art Show)

Will be a traveling exhibition of contemporary art by Sikh artists (from India, Europe and North America) organized by the Sikh Foundation. The major exhibition ‘Art of the Sikh Kingdoms’ mounted by our efforts combined with Victoria and Albert Museum in 1999 revealed to the world the profusion of beautiful and imaginative works of art produced for the Sikh kingdoms. It established Sikh rulers and nobles of the 18th/19th centuries as important patrons and discerning men of taste. Just as ‘Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms’ altered our view of the Sikhs in the classical arts, ‘Sikh Art Now’ will alter our view of the Sikh contribution to contemporary art. ‘Sikh Art Now’ will be a substantial show of contemporary art from the 1900’s to the present, with leading figures from the Indian and Indian-diasporic art scene.

The works on show will be of the highest quality and will include oil paintings, sculptures, etchings, installations, video art and conceptual art. This exhibition will open in a prominent West Coast venue after which it will travel to 8-10 venues in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe and India.

Works of art will be gathered from participating artists and from public and private collections in India, the US and the UK. A fully illustrated catalogue (approx 200 page) with several essays, will be published for sale at the various exhibition venues and at bookstores worldwide.

This project being in the very preliminary stages, no date about its opening can be mentioned at this point of time but we will keep our patrons posted! Visit us again for more details about this show.

GALLERIES

Satinder Kaur Kapany, Gallery of Sikh Art

This will be the first ever permanent Sikh arts exhibits in North America.

What is there?

On 5th of April 2003, the new Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, opened its Satinder Kaur Kapany Gallery. This gallery has been endowed by Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany with a pledge of $500,000 to the Asian Art Museum. Dr. Kapany, also donated to the Museum nearly one hundred works of Sikh art, many from the 18th-19th century court of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, ‘the Lion of the Punjab’. This will be the only permanent collection of Sikh Art in a North American museum.

Among the donated objects from the Kapany Collection are artworks that belonged to Ranjit Singh, as for example the maharajah’s inlaid sandalwood jewelry box, the signet ring of Ranjit Singh and the jewelry of Maharani Jindan.

A series of forty-one paintings illustrating one of the earliest surviving Janam Sakhis, stories of the life of Guru Nanak, was in the Kapany, family for over two hundred years. Before they were donated to the Museum, a number of the Janam Sakhi paintings hung in the prayer room of the Kapany, home.

The Kapany, gift also includes some of the most significant portraits of the Gurus. The earliest known painting of the first Sikh Guru is dated c. 1770 and shows Guru Nanak in a style of dress that includes both Hindu and Islamic elements recalling the Guru’s insistence that religious differences are in the mind of man, not of God. A portrait of the ninth Guru from 1670, five years before he was beheaded, is the only surviving image of a Guru painted during his lifetime. A painting of Guru Gobind Singh from c. 1850 creates a handsome Eurasian synthesis of style and perspective.

Who will see it? Why is it important?

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco has one of the largest collections of Asian art in the Western world. The Museum undertook a $150 million project to move from Golden Gate Park to the old Main Library in the historical district of San Francisco. The Beaux Art-style building under went a deluxe face- and body-lift for the occasion. Gae Ulenti, the Italian architect contracted for the job, soared to international fame in the 1980s with her redesign of the Garde d’Orsay, the old central railway station in Paris. That building has become one of the most visited museums in one of the most visited cities in the world -- as much for its stunning and innovative architectural reworking as for its great works of art.

The new Asian Art Museum in the heart of San Francisco is expected to have the same international impact as the Garde d’Orsay and to become one of the tourist sights of San Francisco, both for its collection and for the sheer pleasure of a gracious historic building made contemporary and more gracious (lots of big spaces, glass and light).

The Museum expects its attendance to be somewhere near 450,000/year. Can you imagine all of these people being exposed to Sikhism through the Satinder Kaur Kapany Gallery of Sikh Arts?

What lies ahead?

Dr. Forrest McGill, Curator of the Asian Art Museum's South Asian Collection, has declared that ‘the Asian Art Museum is now in the business of Sikh art.’ Mr McGill and his colleagues will work with the Sikh Foundation, international scholars, and other museums and collectors on publications, research, exhibitions and educational events on Sikh Art, and to expand the Sikh Art collection.

More Galleries of Sikh Arts

Also Dr. Kapany has finalized an agreement with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of National History in Washington D.C.

Under this agreement, Sikh arts objects from the Kapany Collection of Sikh Arts (the most respected body of Sikh Arts in United States as termed by the Smithsonian themselves) will be loaned to the Smithsonian for a period of two to five years.

On 24th of July, 2004 The National Museum of Natural History will open a Gallery by the name of ”Heritage of the Sikhs” on Sikh art and Sikh cultural heritage using the objects primarily borrowed from the Kapany Collection of Sikh Art.

The Smithsonian feels that it is an honor for them to exhibit part of this esteemed collection on a long-term loan status.

Some of the objects that will be loaned as part of this agreement are: “A historic Necklace of Rani Jindan”, “A huge painting of all the ten Gurus”, “A portrait of Maharaja Ranjit Singh on Ivory” and a painting done by Arpana Caur (one of the finest contemporary Sikh artist) “expressing the agony of the persecution during the 1984” anti Sikh pogroms in New Delhi, India.

The Sikh Foundation under the leadership of Dr. Kapany aims to establish one or two more permanent Sikh Arts Galleries in the west in addition to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. Efforts have begun to establish one such center in Canada and another in the U.K. 

What can you do to contribute towards the appreciation of Sikh Arts?

You can enjoy these authentic art pieces at the wall in the lounge of your home or office.

Check out our calendars and prints section in our online shop.